FEMA's Root Problem

"No Hands on Deck" (editorial, April 5) describes the problems at the Federal Emergency Management Agency but doesn't discuss the root cause.

FEMA's current disarray and its failures during Hurricane Katrina are the direct result of the conservative Republican philosophy of less or no government (except, of course, for making war).

FEMA was redesigned and reorganized, under Homeland Security, to fail in any serious domestic disaster. Even a more competent, energetic chief than Michael D. Brown would probably have had little success. The agency's lack of effectiveness during Katrina can now be used by the same conservative Republicans to say, "See, we need less, not more, government."

The concept that the federal government can or should handle a domestic emergency is foreign to this administration. It's understandable that there are no hands on deck. Who wants to captain or sail on a ship that our own government has torpedoed?